Something I am not getting here? Must be.

I play beach volleyball. Love the sport & have been playing in the sand for years so if there's a sport I care about even an iota to watch during the Olympic Games, it's beach volleyball.

What is unnecessary and rather bizarre is that women's volleyball has scantily dressed female cheerleaders excitedly hopping about and wiggling their hips. Okay ... why? It's like Maxim magazine splayed out on the sand. Watching this spectacle, I am tempted to gouge my eyes out.

Cheerleading, ridiculous at the best of times (aka, men's sporting events) is more jaw-droppingly disturbing when it's a parade of girls bouncing around in string bikinis prior to a women's sporting event.

Yes, before the crowd gets treated to strong images of powerful women competing for gold, they're treated to chirpy cheer girls excitedly jiggling their bits about and gyrating for the crowd. Oh how far we've come.

How on earth are female volleyball players stomaching this sexually-charged display before competition? Truly shaking my head here.

Seriously, If we're condoning cheerleading as a form of entertainment at women's sporting events, shouldn't we be rounding up ripped dudes, outfitting them in barely-there banana hammocks that flaunts their manhood, and getting them to kick off the game with big, dippy cheers to heat up the crowd?

According to an article in Huffingtonpost.com, "The cheerleaders are called baobei in Chinese, which literally means babies or babes.
These babies are required to show their passion, energy and openness. For example, Chinese beach volleyball babies (shatan baobei) are demanded to wear Bikinis to dance in front of audiences. In order to show their healthiness, they have also been asked to bathe in the sun in order to get a darker skin, which goes against the Chinese notion of female beauty.

One girl stated that they understood that they were playing an important role for the beach volleyball and they were there to give the audiences, most of them Chinese, an enjoyable viewing experience."

Can't help but be a part of the peanut gallery here, but seriously, an important role? Could she actually be convinced of this? Think my lunch is starting to bubble back up as I write this blog.

Another piece on Huffingtonpost had this to say "When Chinese spectators go to watch beach volleyball in the Chaoyang Beach Volleyball court, they might be pleasingly or offensively surprised that Chinese girls in bikinis are going to dance in front of audiences whenever there is a break. These girls are called Shatan Baobei (beach babies), a term that imply that these girls are childlike, innocent and immature."

Okay, just have one word you folks: Yuck.